From an on-line article: Purportedly finding itself increasingly irrelevant in an age of 140-character Twitter speak and text abbreviations, the unofficial British guardian of proper English is calling it quits. OMG! ... the society was able to muster only 22 people to attend its annual conference, which ended with no candidates' having stepped forward for chairman, vice chairman, administrator, webmaster or membership secretary.

I does seem a bit of a shame, but so far as I can work it out, they had ossified and were not accepting that the language continually changes. And it was not the sort of organisation that appeals to the younger members of society which it so badly needed. I believe that the average age of the members was around 65.

After Dr Thomas Bowdler, 1754-1825, who published, in 1807, The Family Shakspeare (sic). This was a publication of the complete works with all the passages " unsuitable for the ears of ladies and children" expurgated.

(EDIT) Not the complete works, but all of the plays. First edition was about twenty of the most popular plays - others were added in a later edition.)

I've read (not skimmed) the article. Agreed, a fair comment.The Society can retire. I'm no prescrivist as long as I can understand what's written. I definitely do think our young ones today are not well instructed in the usage of written language. Could be there is no other way. We too have large amounts of immigrants. I have a son who came into my household at the age of 5 speaking only lingala, the river dialect in Congo. His way into learning Dutch was very interesting, but I'm glad we talk and he doesn't need to write me letters.

Back to QES:

Even in Mr.Pullum's carefull comments I've found a sentence that confused me because it did not read well:

"It's extraordinarily bad when judged by the sort of standards that one might expect an organization of educated professional people devoted to the protection of Standard English and education in its use."

I've had to read it twice and suspect he forgot 'of' before 'an organisation'. No big deal but it hinders the train of thought while reading.

Disclaimer: Wordsmith.org is not responsible for views expressed on this site.
Use of this forum is at your own risk and liability - you agree to
hold Wordsmith.org and its associates harmless as a condition of using it.